


Only Opportunity

by Eustacia Vye (eustaciavye)



Series: Walking In Truth [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, Gunplay, Infidelity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-15
Packaged: 2017-11-25 14:01:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eustaciavye/pseuds/Eustacia%20Vye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just because she was home alone didn't mean she was helpless.</p><p> </p><p>For the prompt <a href="http://inception-kink.livejournal.com/19632.html?thread=47022512#t47022512">Ariadne is at home, being held at gunpoint by a group of people (3 or 4) one of them gives her a phone and tells her to call Arthur (or Eames).</a></p>
            </blockquote>





	Only Opportunity

There is no security on this earth; there is only opportunity.  
— Douglas MacArthur

The woman currently going by the name Lily Wellner was rather rudely woken from a deep sleep when she was dragged out of bed and unceremoniously dumped onto the floor. To add insult to injury, she was kicked in the stomach and there was the unmistakable sound of the safety being taken off of a gun.

She had been born Eleanor Lewis, but had also gone by the name Ariadne and most recently Eliza Springer. The apartment she was living in belonged to Eames, who was out on a dream share job. She had locked up before going to bed the night before, but that apparently didn't mean very much to the three men standing over her in thick combat boots, heavy denim jeans and jackets over thin t-shirts. She could only assume that there would be shoulder rigs hidden beneath those heavy jackets. There was no other reason for anyone to wear such heavy clothing in Mombasa. The heat was too oppressive for that to be a choice a reasonable person would make.

Her wavy brown hair had fallen over her face and she struggled to catch her breath. She coughed, and there was the click of another safety being removed.

"Where's Eames?" one man snarled.

Somehow this development wasn't terribly surprising.

Lily coughed again, playing up the wounded female role for a moment. Men always fell for that, especially since she was so petite and had delicate looking features. She peered up at them through her hair, trying to see if any of them looked familiar. Eames and Yusuf had tried to brief her on the more volatile members of Mombasa's underground, but none of these faces fit the descriptions they had given.

New players very rarely were a good sign. Especially if they were this vicious.

"Where the fuck is Eames?" the man snarled again. When Lily merely coughed again and tried her best to look helpless, he kicked her square in the solar plexus again.

Okay. Time for a new plan.

"I can't breathe if you keep kicking me," she managed to wheeze, and one of the men indicated that the kicker should back up. Lily waited a few beats before coughing again, then gingerly pushed herself up to a sitting position. There was a gun strapped beneath the bedside table, but too obvious to get to. She knew there were two hunting knives between the mattresses, one on each side, and there were other knives in the bathroom. Yet she had no way to get to any of them. Dammit.

"Well? Where is he?"

"I don't know," Lily said, shaking her head. "He didn't tell me."

"Lying whore," the kicker spat.

"Would _you_ tell a girl what you were doing?" one of the two armed men scoffed. Lily mentally nicknamed him Thing One.

Thing Two was the one holding the kicker back. He snorted and then glared down at Lily as if it was her fault Eames wasn't there. "She might know something."

As if it would really be that easy. There was no way to reach between the mattresses for a knife or sprawl to grab the gun. Thing One and Thing Two didn't have safeties on, and she had to assume a bullet was chambered. She would be dead before she could even turn around.

 _Eames, I'm going to kill you,_ Lily thought, fuming despite her bland expression.

"I could call him," she offered. 

Kicker seemed to think that it was a trick of some kind, but Thing One thought that it was a good idea.

Lily went to the living room, where her phone had been charging. Thing One and Thing Two watched her every move, and Kicker seemed to want to pummel her into ground meat. It made her wonder why he was even there, if the other two just wanted information.

Of course, they probably weren't going to let her live afterward. That might have been Kicker's purpose in tagging along with Thing One and Thing Two.

She didn't intend to go down without a fight. She just had to be smart about it.

As soon as Eames' sleepy voice picked up the phone, Lily abruptly asked "When are you going to be home? I'm really hungry."

He was instantly awake, since the non sequitur was too odd. "Where are you?"

"I'm in the living room?"

Eames blew out a breath, and she could almost hear him try to visualize the apartment. "Sit down on the couch."

"Okay." Lily dared Thing One and Thing Two to say something as she sat down, and Kicker grumbled something uncomplimentary about what her anatomy was good for. _In your dreams, and maybe not even then,_ Lily thought, teeth grinding together.

There was a soft chuckle in her ear, making her think that he could hear the tooth grinding clearly. "I'm guessing you're not alone. There's a gun down the left-side cushion. It's loaded and the safety's off."

Thing One was muttering to Kicker that he had to keep his dick in his pants, and Thing Two was saying something about it not being the right time for his bullshit. Lily hissed softly, "I'm not a lefty," while they weren't paying attention to her.

Eames let out a pained breath. "Then you're going to die."

She must have made a noise of dismay, because suddenly Kicker was looking right at her. She couldn't fall apart, not when there could very well be more even odds. She shifted position slightly and gave a soft sigh as she let her left hand creep between the cushions. The sigh turned into a more satisfied sound as her left hand curled around Eames' spare USP Compact. "All right. I'll see you when you get here."

"Eleanor..." Eames began, anxiety in his tone.

Lily hung up and stared at the three men evenly. She wasn't stupid enough to think that she would live if she told them where Eames was. He wasn't even in Mombasa, but she wasn't about to tell these thugs that. Right now, her knowledge about his current location was the only reason they were keeping her alive. She would just have to take care of business herself, then take it out of his hide later. Maybe after some "welcome back to Mombasa" sex. There. That was thinking positive. That was giving her something to look forward to and plan for.

She was still going to kill him. Messily and painfully. After he made her come a few times.

"He should be on his way. Though I don't know how long it will take," she lied, her phone still in hand. It was still set to ring, and when the guitar strains of a flamenco song started, Thing Two actually jumped.

"Why not?" Thing One demanded, eyes narrowed. He seemed to be the one to fully pay attention to; he was taking in her shifted posture and the fact that her left hand was out of his sight.

"I didn't ask," Lily shrugged, shifting her left hand a bit out of the couch cushion. Her phone was still in her right palm, ringing. Thing Two was looking around uneasily, gun pointed at the floor. The safety was still off, and Kicker was scowling at her. "Do you want me to call him back?" she asked, lifting her ringing phone.

When it stopped ringing, the apartment seemed far too silent. Kicker made a growling sound and pushed past Thing One, intending to head toward Lily. "Bitches are stupid," he snarled. "They're only good for one fucking thing." Pushing Thing One made him move his gun hand so that it was no longer pointed in Lily's direction, but at the floor.

Perfect.

Swinging her left hand around, Lily pulled the trigger as Kicker approached. She didn't wait to see what Thing One and Thing Two would do, but rolled around the edge of the couch. As Kicker fell to the ground, Thing One and Thing Two raised their guns to fire. Lily shoved her phone into the waistband of her panties to get it out of the way and transferred the gun to her right. 

Thing One was saying something in a language that Lily didn't know, and Thing Two responded in a nervous tone. There was a dull and wet sound, as if someone was nudging Kicker. By his lack of response, Lily assumed he was dead.

Crouched behind the couch, she slowly lifted her head to see where the two Things were. Thing Two was looking down at Kicker with a pained expression, and Thing One was staring straight at Lily.

She didn't think twice. She fired straight at his chest and pivoted to shoot Thing Two.

A line burned across her left arm and she felt like she was deaf in her right ear. Both had pulled the triggers on their guns convulsively when she shot them, the momentum spinning them somewhat. As they were dying, their aim luckily had been off.

It wasn't quite point blank range like it was with Kicker, but it was still pretty damn close. The exit wounds were monstrous things, great gouts of blood pouring out of the wounds onto the floor. At least laminate was easy to clean.

Thing Two had dropped his gun and clutched at his chest as if he could hold the blood inside of him. He didn't seem to realize that Lily could literally see right through him. Thing One was a bit more cognizant, and had held onto his gun. She shot him again, though he moved. The bullet caught him in the throat instead of the head, and the spray of blood from severed arteries and veins splashed across Thing Two. Lily turned back toward Thing Two, but he looked at her with pleading eyes as he crashed to his knees. "We didn't mean no harm," he said, still pushing at the wound in his chest. His face was ashen, the blood down his back thick and sluggish.

Lily got up and aimed right between his eyes. "Of course you did," she told him coldly. Her chest was a hollow thing, her eyes burning bright.

She felt nothing as she pulled the trigger.

***

The front door opened and closed with quiet clicks as Lily was cleaning the floor with a combination of cold water and peroxide. Most of the floor was laminate, which made it easy to mop up the stains with spare towels and rags. She still had to be careful with the peroxide to be sure it didn't bleach out the laminate. The tile flooring in the bathroom, where she had dragged the bodies to dump them into the tub, would require more of the peroxide to bleach out whatever had soaked into the porous material. Her hands were pruny, but she kept at it. The longer the blood had time to set and dry, the worse it would be to try to get out the stains. She could dig the bullets from out of the walls later and spackle over the holes.

"Oh."

Lily didn't even look up when she heard Arthur's quiet voice. "Want to help?" she asked, taking a new rag from the pile to soak in the bucket of cold water.

"That's why I'm here," he replied, then knelt down next to her.

They worked in silence for a while, though it was companionable. It reminded Lily of when she had been Ariadne in that Parisian warehouse, building her models while Arthur went through his background checks and financial acrobatics. There was no need to force conversation or invent reasons to spend time together. She didn't feel on edge around him, as if she had to second guess every word she said. Of course, that was probably why he had seen through the Ariadne persona so quickly.

"Thank you," Lily murmured as the last of the laminate flooring came clean. Now there was the bathroom, though her hands were numb and scraped raw in places.

Arthur took one of her hands in his. "I came as fast as I could. Eames called me as soon as he couldn't reach you."

"I could handle it," she said stiffly. She tried to pull her hand away, but Arthur held tightly. "I'm _fine,_ Arthur. I don't need a babysitter."

"I know," Arthur replied, looking her straight in the eye. The edges of his fingers shifted against her skin in a soothing gesture she didn't want. "You're okay."

"Yes, I am."

"You've always been okay. I'll call Eames and let him know."

His voice was steady, his touch sure and grounding. Arthur had arrived in khakis and a loose T shirt, a shoulder rig hidden beneath it. He had been ready for anything, and would have done anything at all to help her if she needed it. She didn't, but it was still nice to know that he was prepared. It made her recall his family in Chicago, the homey feel of that house and the casual affection that they had for each other.

He had a home that he protected, and it was a place he had offered her freely. Arthur trusted her implicitly, even as she had lied with every breath about being Ariadne. Remembering that made her throat constrict painfully.

"Thank you," she repeated. "It means a lot to me."

Arthur smiled at her widely enough for his dimple to show and his eyes to crinkle a little in the corners. "Of course I'd help you, Eleanor," he murmured. "You only have to ask."

"True friends help you hide the body, is that it?" she asked with a wry tone.

He laughed and leaned forward slightly, so that his shoulder bumped hers. "Didn't get that far in the cleanup, then?"

"No. I had to call Eames' contact in the police department in case neighbors had called about the gunshots." She gave him a small and somewhat tired smile. "So... Are you going to help me hide the bodies?"

"I'm _your_ friend," Arthur replied with a quirk of his lips. "You're the only one I'd help in this city. Come on, let's do this."

He was scarily efficient at dismembering corpses and obliterating identifying aspects. Lily had some working knowledge of what to do, but Arthur made Eames' tutelage seem like a waste of time. Eames had a system cobbled together from trial and error; he merely kept what worked and didn't necessarily try to find shortcuts. Arthur moved with military precision, as if putting together intricate clockwork. He didn't seem to have shed his military training as Eames had.

Lily found herself biting her lip as her eyes traveled over Arthur's form. It wasn't fair to Eames, even if they didn't name or label whatever it was between them. They cared about each other, had fun together, and would kill or maim for each other. They had never actually discussed being exclusive, and Lily wondered idly what Arthur's touch would feel like on her bare skin, what he would taste like on her tongue. His physique was different, but there was still an underlying core of steel in him.

He could overpower her, and she wondered what that would be like. She had seen the intensity in his gaze during the Fischer job, the tightness of his jaw and the fierce determination to get things done. Lily was drawn to the darkness in him, the hidden places he hadn't shared.

What did it say about her, that she didn't want stability and safety, but the freefalling terror that came from the darkness and unknown?

Arthur would say it made her human. Eames would laugh and encourage her to explore those thoughts. Yusuf would merely cluck his tongue and ask why she needed external validation to feel comfortable with herself.

The sun had already come up when they returned to Eames' apartment after disposing of the bodies. Lily was exhausted, and gratefully let Arthur make her breakfast. "I could fall asleep while standing up," she murmured, falling into a chair at the kitchen table.

"Not enough caffeine in your system," Arthur replied with a smile. "Let's take care of that."

Lily didn't even bother to hide the way she ogled Arthur as he moved around the kitchen to make breakfast. He smirked at her and picked up his fork. "Should I just take off my shirt and be done with it?" he teased.

"After the night we've just had? Sure," she replied with a playful grin. She didn't think he would actually follow through, but he pulled off the T shirt and sat there in just the shoulder rig holding his Glock 19.

Lily blinked and blurted out, "Yum."

Arthur laughed and tucked into his French toast. "Glad you approve."

Despite herself, she laughed along with him. "Oh, definitely." She looked at him closely after drinking some of her coffee. "Not that I'm not grateful for the help in tossing bodies into the ocean, but why are you still in Mombasa? I would've thought you'd be elsewhere in the world by now. Or in Chicago."

He chewed slowly and then swallowed the bite of toast. "I wanted to be nearby just in case."

"Just in case," she echoed.

"Eames can get into stupid shit."

"You don't worry about _him,_ though," she pointed out.

His eyes were dark and smoldering as he took in her appearance with a long, languid look. "I don't care about him the same way."

Lily's throat closed and she had to put down her coffee mug. "Oh."

"You weren't expecting that," he observed quietly.

"I guess... The kiss on the Fischer job and before you let on that you knew my name really wasn't Ariadne... You never pushed farther than that." Lily looked at him helplessly. "I didn't think you wanted to. I don't..." She felt like an idiot as she stared at his patient, expectant expression. For some reason she wanted to cry. Relationships always seemed to make her feel lost and helpless, a weak thing she never wanted to be. "I don't know why I didn't see it," she said softly.

Arthur reached across the table and simply grasped her hand. She never had to hide herself from him, never felt awkward or uncomfortable. There was a tenderness in his expression that she didn't expect, especially after being with Eames for the past few months. "Maybe you didn't want to. If you saw it, you'd have to do something about it. You'd think you would have to make a decision."

"Don't I? It wouldn't be fair to string him along."

His gaze was even and unguarded. "It wouldn't be stringing anyone along if we all know what's going on."

"How is that good enough?" Lily asked quietly, eyes dropping to their clasped hands. "You deserve someone real, someone whole."

"And you aren't?" he challenged.

"I'm not going by my real name..."

"You can't," he told her bluntly. "I don't go by my birth name either. Did you really think Eames was his actual name?"

His hesitation in Amsterdam had been practically proof positive that it wasn't, so Lily merely shook her head. "No. Even I'm not that green."

Arthur smiled, teeth flashing at her in amusement. "And do you really think he doesn't know about my interest?"

Lily blinked in surprise. "What?"

"He's more attached to you than he should be, if he truly wanted to be safe from all attachments," Arthur continued as if she hadn't spoken. "It's what a lot of people in our field do, keep themselves apart to make sure that they're safe."

"It's not what you do," she interrupted.

"No, it's not," he said, a slight curve to his lips. "I'm sure it says something about me, the way I cope with this."

"I like it," she blurted, hand tightening over his. "Your family was wonderful. I almost felt like I belonged there, like I was real even when I wasn't."

"You were real," Arthur corrected firmly. "It's not a name that makes you a whole person, not a job, and not material possessions."

"It was safe there," Lily murmured, head tilted to the side, her golden eyes fixed on Arthur's brown eyes. "It was secure."

His lips curled in the corners. "Was it? A half dozen children in and out and disrupting the peace? Me waltzing in and out of their lives with an armful of presents as if it can replace a lifetime of someone like my mother being there?" He shook his head. "That's not what makes reality. Reality is what you do with the opportunities given to you. Reality is born of the choices you make."

"Why did you make the choices you did, then?"

"They're not all my story to tell."

She was former CIA, and knew how that could go. Nodding, Lily let her fingers run along the inside of his muscled forearm. "What can you say?"

"I didn't agree with the direction of dream share. Not that criminal activity is necessarily any better, but it's more of a challenge. At least in this field, you can predict what will happen next, and it's not contingent on the changing whims of a bureaucrat that doesn't know anything about the projects they're interfering with."

"Ouch," Lily replied with a wry smile. "Bitter much?"

Arthur laughed and watched Lily's fingers trace abstract designs into his skin. "Where do your attachments lie, Eleanor?" he asked gently. "What are you waiting for?"

Lily opened and then shut her mouth. "I'm going by Lily right now," she said finally, not sure if she was making any kind of sense. "I don't... I don't know who she is yet, but she cares about you. About Eames. About Yusuf. Even that idiot Yang that's a horrible flirt at the casino."

His laughter was amused, more full than she had heard it in a long time. He rose and pulled her to her feet. She had the feeling that there was some kind of opening she had missed, some vital opportunity that he had been giving her that she was too thick to understand.

And then he kissed her, and it was nothing like the gentle, hesitant ones he had given her before.

God help her, she was kissing him right back with just as much intensity.

The wall was suddenly against her back, and she didn't remember stepping backward to lean against it for balance. Her arms were around him, hands flush against his bare skin. The rig dug into her chest, and she began tugging at the straps impatiently. Arthur laughed again, that rich and open sound, then broke the kiss to remove the shoulder rig and hang it on the back of her chair. He tugged at her shirt to remove it, leaving her in only the cami she had gone to sleep in hours ago. He frowned when he saw the makeshift bandage on her arm. "You're hurt."

"A graze, nothing vital," Lily told him dismissively. "It'll scar, though."

Without warning, Arthur scooped her up in his arms and went to the bedroom. He laid her down on the bed gently, then climbed in on top of her. His mouth was over hers, his weight balanced on his forearms. He didn't bother with words to tell her how concerned he was, how the concept of her wounded and bleeding bothered him.

Lily hooked a leg around his waist and pulled his body closer to hers as she pushed her tongue into his mouth. Her hands tangled in his hair, and it wasn't enough that he was finally kissing her with reckless abandon. She wanted _everything,_ and it was probably Eames' fault that the last of her inhibitions as Eleanor had fallen away. Now she didn't think twice about getting or taking what she wanted, for indulging in something for the pure sensation.

Of course, Arthur wasn't exactly complaining about that at the moment, either.

She had the feeling that he would be content with kissing her, with trying to drive her over the edge with want just from his lips and tongue alone. Lily had no intention of waiting all day, and pushed at his chest to have him roll over onto his back. She straddled his waist and took in his satisfied smile for all of a second before seizing his mouth in a possessive kiss. Loose wisps of her hair had escaped her ponytail and tickled his face. Arthur reached up and brushed it away, one hand then moving down to trace her spine through her cami.

It wasn't enough just to taste his mouth, however. When she broke the kiss to breathe, she feathered her lips along the curve of his jaw and chin, down his neck and then the hollow where his collarbones met. Her fingers traced circles around his flat nipples, and she smiled against his sternum when one pebbled beneath her fingertips. "You like that?"

Arthur laughed. "Somehow I doubt it's doing as much for me as it is for you."

He could feel her own nipples hardening as she dragged her chest down his torso, and the cami was thin. Lily chuckled and pressed her lips along the imaginary line dividing his body in half, her hands slowly dragging down his chest until she came to the waistband of his khakis. She fumbled with the button and zipper, getting it open after what felt like an extraordinary amount of time. She finally dragged his clothes off and took him into her mouth without preamble, one hand splayed across his lower stomach. It was gratifying to hear him suck in a breath, to feel the tips of his fingers brush against the top of her head as if he was afraid to interrupt her. Lily took as much into her mouth as she could, her tongue sliding down as far as she could get it. Her weight was more or less perched on her left forearm, which left those fingers little room to do much more than erratically stroke the inside of his thigh.

"Eleanor," he groaned, arching his hips slightly toward her mouth.

It was different hearing her real name on his lips, rather than one of her aliases. She lifted her head slightly, enough so that her tongue could swirl around his burgeoning width until she came to the ridge at the head of his cock. He made an inarticulate sound of want, fingers tangling in her hair tightly and almost painfully. He didn't push her head back down, at least, and she could see that he had thrown his head back when she looked up at him through her lashes. Lily gave a little extra suck as she lifted her lips from his cock, and shifted position so that she could press the fingers of her left hand against his balls. Her right held his cock steady as she teasingly blew a breath across his damp skin. "How does it feel, Arthur?" she asked, voice breathy as she took in the flush of his skin. She had done this. She had reduced him to this.

Arthur let out a little moan that sounded like "Good," making Lily smile. She dipped her head back down and licked around the head as if it was a lollipop, then traced little designs along the length of him. She smiled as she moved, hearing his breath hitch. His fingers moved restlessly in her hair, and she could hear his head move along the pillow.

She teased him relentlessly, moving her lips and tongue along his length before taking him into her mouth. Whenever her jaw started to ache a bit, she would pull back and kiss his cock or the skin above the curling hairs, licking his lower stomach just to make him hiss in anticipation and need. Occasionally she nuzzled his skin with her nose or lips, quickly figuring out which areas were the most sensitive. She wound up stroking a thin stripe of skin at the base of his cock most often, if she wasn't trying to swallow him down whole. All the while, Arthur let out inarticulate and desperate noises, hips shifting toward her mouth as his fingers pressed subtly down.

Lily finally rose to her knees. Arthur's eyes were dilated with desire as he looked at her, lips parted. "Eleanor," he rasped.

Grasping the bottom edge of her cami, she drew it up over her head. Arthur tracked the motion and licked his lips, staying where he was on the bed. She supposed he didn't want to distract her or make her change her mind. Nothing could change her mind at this point, and she got off the bed long enough to kick off her pants and panties. She could feel the damp between her legs, the anticipation coiling deep inside her gut. "Are you ready for me?" she said as she crawled back onto the bed. Arthur grasped her hips, helping to keep her steady.

"I want to touch you," he said.

"What's stopping you?"

He moved quickly, rising up and grasping her hips to pull her bodily down on top of him. He kissed her hungrily, licking into her mouth as soon as her lips parted. He had one hand at the back of her head and the other at her rear, holding her against him. His cock was pressed between their bodies, right up against her stomach. There was a faint tremor in Arthur's touch, as if he was holding back and didn't want to get too rough. Lily would have to tell him later that he didn't have to be so careful. At that moment, she was too occupied by his tongue stroking hers and his other hand moving to tease the skin at the curve of her ass where it met her thigh. She shifted slightly, moving upward so that his touch could probe even lower. He wasn't quite reaching where she wanted his fingers to be, so she broke the kiss and shifted her stance above him.

Arthur looked amused as she straddled him and brought one of his hands right between her legs. He obligingly began to stroke her, then slid a finger inside of her when he found her already damp. "I take it you know what you want."

"Don't you?" she challenged.

"Yeah," he agreed, then moved forward to kiss her again. The angle was a little awkward, and he ultimately gave up so that he could suck at her neck. Lily held him close, making a little mewling noise when he slid a second finger inside of her and pressed his thumb up against her clit. His hand moved slowly at first, until he realized that she was thrusting her hips up against his hand at a rapid pace. Arthur moved faster and a little harder, making her moan in pleasure.

"Harder," she managed to gasp out after a while, her fingers tight on his body as she held him to stay balanced on her knees. He obliged, moving at an even more rapid pace. He licked the hickey he'd sucked into her neck and moved his mouth further along her collarbone. Lily arched her back as she gasped and pushed her hips against his hand, making his fingers thrust deeper into her. Arthur took the hint and wrapped his lips around her breast, sucking hard enough to make her moan louder. She could feel her body tighten a little, and she raked her nails down his back as she groaned. "More... Close, I'm close, more..."

Just a few moments more and he tipped her over the edge into orgasm. Arthur slowed his strokes, letting her come down from the high. He pulled his head back slightly to look at her, eyes blown wide with desire. "My turn."

"Yeah," she agreed, voice breathy.

Lily let Arthur help her with her balance as she shifted to sink down over him. Arthur let out a contented sigh at the contact. He held her flush against him and she rocked over him slowly at first, getting used to the feel of him inside of her. Throwing her head back as she moved faster, Lily let her eyes fall shut and simply let herself feel. There was Arthur hard and thick inside of her, hands splayed across her back and his warm breath coming in puffs against her exposed throat. Pressure built up inside her, and she moved even faster.

"Shit," Arthur said suddenly. "I'm going to... Eleanor, stop, slow down," he panted.

She didn't, chasing her own pleasure, and Arthur shivered as he came abruptly. He made a soft hissing noise as she kept moving, then reached between their bodies to rub at her clit hard and fast, hoping to make her come quickly. Lily only slowed once she did, and let her head fall forward again as she panted for breath. "Fuck," she said with feeling.

"I think we just did," he teased.

She laughed along with Arthur and let her eyes fall closed as she touched her forehead to his. "What took us so long to figure this part out?"

Arthur trailed his fingers along her spine. "You're attracted to Eames, too."

Lily blew out a breath, wishing she could deny it. "There's that."

"I wouldn't stop that, you know," he told her in a conversational tone. Lily pulled back to look at him, a frown on her face. This wasn't exactly post-coital conversation, but it was important just the same. "You're with him some of the time. You can be with me some of the time, too."

"But..."

He traced the ridges of her spine and pressed a kiss to her collarbone. "We're not always in the same places. I couldn't ask you to put everything on hold just for me."

 _You should,_ she thought abruptly, frowning at him. _Don't people do that if they care?_ But this world was different, the rules a little off from what she was used to. People spun into and out of each other's orbits all the time, and it was difficult to carry on a steady relationship in dream share. Even the Cobbs hadn't been able to make it last forever.

Lily traced the planes and angles of his face. "You deserve more than that."

"Then you'd better stay here a while longer, hm?" Arthur pointed out.

"I'm not going anywhere," she told him, meaning it.

"I don't have any jobs lined up," he said, reaching up to brush her hair away from her face. "I'm not going anywhere for a while, too."

Lily pushed him onto his back on the bed. This would have to do, then. It wasn't ideal, but she wasn't about to let this opportunity slip through her fingers.

The End


End file.
